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It doesn’t get much better than this. And I say that fully believing that Marvel can go even bigger, better and more exciting. If after more than ten movies deep into their film slate, Marvel can still produce something as amazing as Captain America: Civil War, then the future remains as bright as ever. This is the epic, spectacular, big bombast superhero movie that Marvel has been building towards all these years.

Movie Rating: 9/10 – Great.

Captain America: Civil War is a glorious mix of spectacle and drama, combining some of the most touching and important character work in the entire franchise with quite possibly the greatest bout of superhero action to ever grace the silver screen. The centerpiece ‘war’ between heroes at the abandoned airport is worth the price of admission alone. It’s worth of price of admission to every Marvel movie we’ve seen so far, building on almost each and every film to instill real emotional heft to these characters and their punches.

When Captain American, Iron Man and their allies face off in Civil War, there is real history behind it. We’ve seen the previous movies. We’ve seen the friendships and rivalries grow and build and strain. We’ve seen Steve Rogers and Tony Stark get testy in The Avengers. We’ve watched Black Widow’s character arc from the sidelines of other movies. We’ve seen Ant-Man consider calling the Avengers for help. This has been a journey.

Civil War is a movie for Marvel fans, for the people who have seen all their movies and probably held mini-marathons to gear up for this new one. It’s not ashamed of that focus, and it shouldn’t be. Marvel is producing a masterpiece on a scale never before imagined, and they’re pulling it off with such skill and excitement that I almost feel bad for other movies.

Like, do any of the previous Spider-Man movies even matter anymore? Batman v. Superman surely doesn’t.

Join me after the jump for the full review. There will be SPOILERS for Captain America: Civil War.

Marvel revealed a lot about their upcoming Civil War II event at the C2E2 comic book convention this weekend. There are going to be tie-ins, and more tie-ins, and kind of a lot of tie-ins. I’m not yet sold on this being any good. I really enjoyed Secret Wars, and I’m sure I’ll give Civil War II a read, but it definitely feels more like a marketing stunt than anything else. But we’ll see.

One of the things Marvel revealed was who would take whose side in the upcoming conflict. And that sounds like a good way to start a Monday to me!

Looks about right to me. I like the Ant-Man inclusion. And I wonder how Captain America feels about taking a backseat to Captain Marvel this time around, heh.

Like this:

See what I did there? I hope so, because I’m rather proud of that pun. Either way, filming is under way for Captain America 3: Civil War, and photographic sleuths have captured the first images of Falcon and Crossbones in costume — and they look pretty great!

Falcon is sporting his full costume from the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron. I like it! Falcon has had some pretty bad costumes in his comic book career, so I’m excited for this more realistic, mechanical looking suit. I’m also grateful that they did mix in some red and white.

Sadly, no Redwing…yet

Actor Anthony Mackie has been great as Sam Wilson, so I’m excited to see him return for the threequel.

Actor Frank Grillo also looks pretty intense as supervillain Crossbones, a carry over from Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Remember the semi-friendly SHIELD agent who turned out to be a bad guy, Brock Rumlow? He’s back as Crossbones in the new movie.

Though I’m a little disappointed in how suited up he is. Crossbones, especially recently, usually wears standard military-esque gear with just a skull mask. This costume is full-on super-villain.

Super-villain style

And check out those gauntlets on his hands! Probably meant for punching the super soldier Captain America.

Civil War is going to be an exciting film! Too bad we have to wait a whole year! It’s a good thing we have Ant-Man to tide us over.

I liked Mark Millar’s Civil War. It wasn’t perfect, there were parts I didn’t like, and it left a bad taste in a lot of fandoms’ mouths, but overall, and especially in hindsight, I liked Civil War. I’m not ashamed to admit it, nor am I embarrassed to have read it. Civil War was a pretty insane comic book endeavor, but it’s also probably the best Marvel Big Event of the past decade.

So when Marvel Studios announced that Captain America 3 was going to be Captain America: Civil War, I was absolutely thrilled!

Captain America probably wasn’t too thrilled

I hope I’m not the only one. But reading around the web, I see a lot of people freaking out over the choice of Civil War. I understand that a lot of comic book fans apparently hated the story. By all means, everybody’s entitled to their opinions. But hating a comic book that came out nearly a decade ago and worrying that Marvel Studios is making a mistake are two very different things. I think Civil War is the perfect storyline going forward, and if you’ll join me after the jump, I’ll tell you why.

Who can say if this is what will actually come to pass, but Variety is reporting that Robert Downey Jr. has signed on for a significant guest starring role in Captain America 3 in order to kick off the infamous Civil War storyline that pits superhero against superhero! The third Cap film will be titled Captain America: Civil War and will have long-reaching ramifications for future Avengers sequels and the Marvel Movieverse as a whole!

And they look like such bros in Age of Ultron!

Sounds good to me!

For those who don’t know, Civil War is a rather infamous story from the mid-00s that pitted hero against hero. The government imposed a Superhero Registration Act that sought to put an end to vigilantes by making superheroes register their secret identities with the government, turning all superheroes into government agents.

Tony Stark supports the law, Steve Rogers opposes it, leading to a civil war between two of Marvel’s biggest heroes (and probably the two biggest in the Movieverse).

This sounds like an excellent storyline for the movies considering how juicy the banter and potential rivalry could be between Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans. They were already not seeing eye-to-eye in The Avengers. And considering Stark’s role in creating Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron, I bet he’d definitely be looking to make up for his mistakes by supporting such a law in the Movieverse.

So many mistakes

This would also be the perfect opportunity to debut Spider-Man into the Marvel movies. Marvel and Sony are reportedly in talks about sharing Spidey, if reports can be believed. I doubt Marvel would launch their own Spider-Man franchise, so why not make him a minor star in a Civil War-based Avengers sequel? Spidey was the face of Civil War in the comics. He was convinced by Tony Stark to reveal his secret identity to the world, only for his family to get hurt, so Spidey switched sides and joined Cap’s rebellion.

A Civil War movie would be the perfect place to debut Spidey. And personally, I think the Andrew Garfield Amazing Spider-Man movies line-up perfectly with the style and tone of the Marvel movies.

Make it happen!

So I am definitely in favor of Civil War hitting the movies. It has the potential to be huge!

One thing that bugs me about Variety’s report, though, is Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter. According to the article, Perlmutter was so angry that Downey wanted a larger role in Cap 3 (including a larger paycheck) that he ordered the part cut out entirely, only for Marvel Studios Head Honcho Kevin Feige to prevail. Perlmutter is reportedly the same guy who is so angry at FOX Studios that he cancelled the Fantastic Four comic.

I realize that we all know to hate CEOs on principle alone, but did the CEO of Marvel Comics really have to be such a douchenozzle? Couldn’t Marvel, of all companies, have an awesome CEO?

Anyway, what do you henchies think about these Civil War plans for the Movieverse? I think it’s only going to help make bigger, more exciting films. Plus it would work nicely with the various actors’ contracts coming to an end. It would shake up the Avengers franchise as a whole and really provide some new and interesting stories.

And while we’re on the topic, Marvel put out a new teaser for Civil War comics coming in 2015.

You’re going to break him!

No one seems to have any idea what this teaser means. Cap, Spidey and Iron Man are all wearing their costumes from the original Civil War, but what does that mean? Is Marvel doing a new Civil War? Or are they just putting out some kind of collected edition of the original series?

One thing is for sure: there’s no way it’s a coincidence that Marvel would post that image and Variety would break their story on the same day. How much you want to bet Marvel heard about Variety’s story in advance and rushed something out themselves about Civil War?

Whatever the case may be, all of this sounds like good news for upcoming Marvel movies!

What do you henchies think? Do you think Civil War is a terrible idea for movies? A great idea? What about Robert Downey Jr. guest-starring in more flicks? Sound off in the comments!